INTRODUCTORY 7 



think and inquire when he is referred to twenty 

 or thirty, all practical men of the world, of great 

 knowledge and experience, and to more than as 

 many more travellers of all sorts and classes, 

 who make similar assertions — especially when he 

 finds that the opinion of the world, and of the 

 greatest heroes and conquerors throughout all his- 

 tory, has been pretty much to the same effect, and 

 that this opinion has generally prevailed, except 

 during the comparatively recent development of 

 gambling sprinting literature. 



I am induced to be less sparing of citing authori- 

 ties because a gentleman, who, I believe, is of con- 

 siderable standing as regards his knowledge of 

 horses, but whose name was not vouchsafed to me, 

 stated a few weeks since to an intimate friend 

 of mine in this State that it was all nonsense 

 to praise up the Arab : he had neither speed, 

 stamina, nor docility. This is in reality so utterly 

 childish an assertion that it would not require serious 

 refutation, were it not that the adoration of the 

 English thoroughbred has been so intense, and has 

 been indulged in of late by so many racing neophytes, 

 that it seems really necessary, in common fairness, 

 pretty fully to show that there is another side to the 

 question. 



I apologize to the reader if I have quoted too 

 fully, but, as I have said, many quotations are 

 necessary, and it would take half a lifetime properly 

 to assort the material I should desire to lay before 



